Unionist backroom: the fight begins

Paul Bew suggests Blair’s speech is the kind of backing David Trimble has been looking for over the last few years.

However instead of turning fire on Adams and Co, Professor Paul Bew, a close advisor of Trimble’s, looks to the DUP for targets:

“Mr Robinson has been saying interesting things. His public remarks have been widely interpreted as signaling the necessity for a DUP-Sinn Fein understanding as the way forward in Northern Ireland. How credible is Mr Robinson and his alleged project? Mr Robinson, it appears, has a popularity rating of only 7 per cent among unionists and is the deputy leader of a party only 2.7 per cent of whose supporters back power-sharing with the SDLP and Sinn Fein. In the light of these figures, the wager on Mr Robinson seems a very risky one.”